Tomorrow we are taking Kenny to an allergist to try to get to the bottom of his wild reaction to bug bites. (For those of you who are new to the blog, Kenny spent four days in the hospital in April for a staph infection that generated in a mosquito bite.) I am sick to my stomach with the thought of what he’s going to have to go through. The visit is supposed to last four hours. Four hours!?! Kenny wouldn’t even last at a playground for four hours, much less a doctor’s office where they are intermittently sticking him with venom-infused needles.
If it weren’t for the fear of another infected bite and a recurrent staph infection, there’s no way I would put my precious little guy through this. I can’t imagine what he’s going to be thinking tomorrow as I sit there holding his hand and allowing a doctor to cover his arms and back with tiny pin-pricks. Is he old enough to understand that he’s not being punished? That this won’t hurt him in the long run but might keep him from getting sick again?
Pain aside, I don’t know how it’s going to work keeping him there that long. We’re scheduled from 8:30 until 12:30… he usually eats lunch at 11… do we get a lunch break? And what about his flailing nap schedule?
I ache just thinking about his perfect little body covered with welts and needle marks. I’m worried that he will somehow be mad at me, or feel betrayed by me, for letting the doctors do all this to him. I hope he’s young enough that he won’t even remember it all. Has anyone else out there had to take a toddler to an allergist? Was it as bad as I’m fearing??
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3 responses to “The Amazing Human Pincushion”
I haven’t done it with a toddler, but I have with Chloe. Trust me when I say she is not the “roll with the punches” type. Amazingly she handled it quite well, though we weren’t there for four hours. I’ve also had the testing done myself and it wasn’t at all painful. A little itchy, but that’s all.
Do you have a laptop that you could take with a dvd of some kind. I know you aren’t much for TV, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I’d pack a lunch for him with extra special treats. More than likely you will spend a fair amount of that time alone in the room with Kenny waiting to see if anything happens. The DR/nurse will check in now and then. I take (washable) crayons everywhere I go and if I don’t have paper, I give them pamphlets for them to color. They don’t really care what it is. We’ve even colored the paper stuff they put on the exam table. But beware, some of the color came off the paper onto our clothes.
I’ll be praying for you guys tomorrow morning.
Aaawww, poor Kenny! Let us know how it goes, I think I’m going to have to take Kayla for testing due to food allergies 🙁 We did blood work today and they’ll tell us next week if she needs to go to the allergist.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen you, still keeping up with the blog though!
-take care, Steph Wallis
We took Princess when she was five. Trust me, she is VERY difficult to deal with at the doctor’s office – we’ve had to hold her down just for the doctor to look in her nose. She did very well. Our allergist doesn’t use needles any more. He said that now they just need to irritate the skin a bit, not break it. He had these plastic devices that looked like caterpillars – each “leg” was dipped in an allergen. They put the “caterpillar” on Princess’ back and pressed lightly. They had about five or six “caterpillars” and she started to get annoyed with them, but was never in pain or fighting us. She was very uncomfortable once they all started itching. And they wouldn’t let us put any anti-itch cream on for about 30 minutes so that they could gage her skin’s reaction. After that it was Benadryl city!
All in all, the amount of time there was mostly spent waiting. I brought plenty of books and activities. And I agree with Crisanne, pack a lunch and snacks. You guys will be fine! We’ll be covering you in prayer!